Kasich Embarrassed As Trump Surges In Ohio

Donald Trump is poised to overcome issues with John Kasich in Ohio as the GOP Presidential nominee continues to position himself for victory in what has proven to be a “must win” state for Republicans…

“Gov. John Kasich is in open conflict with Donald Trump and national party leaders, but rank-and-file Ohio Republicans have forged their own tenuous truce with their nominee. The accord has transformed Ohio into one of Trump’s best bets to recapture a state that voted twice for Barack Obama.

Resistance to Hillary Clinton is helping fuel Trump’s recent uptick in state polls, Ohio GOP operatives say. While Kasich, a Republican who refuses to back either presidential nominee, is popular in his home state, local GOP leaders and activists are increasingly willing to break from his lead, indicating their preference for Trump in the hopes of preventing Clinton from winning.

A CNN/ORC poll last week found that 85 percent of Republicans in Ohio were backing Trump — up from 77 percent in a Quinnipiac poll in early July and virtually the same as the 83 percent of Democrats who said they were backing Clinton.

“I was a really strong Kasich supporter [during the GOP presidential primary]. I was a volunteer, I deployed at my own expense to Michigan and volunteered for him, and Trump really wasn’t my first choice,” said Traci Saliba, a GOP activist based in Delaware County, a strongly Republican suburb of Columbus where Trump needs to generate big turnout. “The closer we get to Election Day, the more people are taking a look and saying, ‘You know what, he wasn’t my first choice, Donald Trump, but we can’t have another Clinton in the White House.’”